 |
| The invisible man |
There are a number of childhood misnomers and I'm glad to report that “The terrible
two’s” is one of them. Yes, Marty has had his moments;
he has been known to collapse gracefully to the floor in a fit of inconsolable tears, he has been known to scream. He can be a
bit of a bossy little bugger when the feeling takes him and it has to be said
that he can barely look at an envelope these days without wanting to push it.
I had rather hoped to follow all these idiosyncrasies as
they occurred but I was struck down with
2 slipped discs last March and they rather took the fun out of sitting
down to do anything other than immediately standing back up again. So now that I
am approaching full fitness again I thought I’d do a summary of the last year, a year
that was far from terrible.
Of course I’d
heard of the terrible two’s - most parents of older children can’t wait to tell
you all about them and do so with a rather worrying degree of relish. In my
mind’s eye I’d built up a picture of a more diminutive version of the teen years;
we'd awake one morning to discover our bundle of joy had turned into a mumbling
rebel who hated us and insisted on wearing his Thomas-the-Tank-Engine hat back
to front and his nappy half way down his arse. Fortunately this was not the
case.
In truth this last
year has been lovely. Ok, Marty is considerably more likely to break down in
tears than he was a year ago but, on the other hand, in between the bawling he’s
much more likely to have his parents in tears of laughter.
One of the most
fascinating facts that I learnt about a child becoming two was that they
finally attain an intellect that exceeds that of the family dog! In truth the
word “fact” might be open to question here. Yes I read it and yes the author
claimed knowledge on the subject but it’s also very, very, obvious that said
author had never, ever, met our dog. I don’t wish to do her down but we have a
female Boxer and I swear we have moss growing in the garden that could run
intellectual rings around her. I suspect Marty became officially smarter than
our dog when he learnt to fart.
That said, during
the ‘two’s’ the intelligence of the child grows at an astonishing rate. Barely
a day goes by without Marty exhibiting something new, whether it be a new word
or a new physical skill. Alongside this, and probably the most impressive
change, is that he has started to develop empathy and altruism.
I suspect this is
one of the hardest things as a parent to grasp and I have my wife and Dr Chris
Green’s book “Toddler Taming” to thank for what little insight I have gathered.
The mistake that
is very easy to make is believing that your two year old is just a mini version
of you, and the fact that it’s now possible to have a conversation with your
child, albeit not a very coherent one, only adds to this erroneous belief. You
hear parents berating their child for snatching something off another kid, or
for refusing to share and they act as if the kid ought to be aware of the
social transgression. In reality you might as well rebuke them for failing to
understand quantum mechanics.
A two year old is
only just getting to grips with a sense of self, let alone with how that self
interacts with others and one of the joys of the two years is watching that
change take place. Marty now recognises when people are happy or sad, he’ll
share his dinner with me, although usually just after he’s taken a bite out of
one end and slobbered all over the other, and whilst he’s still not entirely
comfortable with the idea of sharing, he is at least willing to occasionally
give it a go.
On the other side
of the coin he still firmly believes that the world revolves around him.
There’s nothing you can do as a parent to change this belief, it’s just a
developmental stage and he or she will eventually work through it – this can
often take 60-70 years. The other thing you have to get your head around as a
parent is that this “the world revolves around me” attitude isn’t a flight of
fancy or a sign of a selfish, spoilt child. It is a genuine belief; it is only
during the two’s that a child starts to come to terms with the idea that they
are not everything; that mummy and daddy are not actually apart of them, that
they have finite boundaries and that they cannot control everything in the
world around them. As adults we take our sense of self and identify so much for
granted that it’s hard to imagine that we actually had to learn these things.
Marty also knows
what he likes and what he doesn’t like. Sadly this is usually not what his mum
and dad like and don’t like. To navigate this shoal of potential friction requires
negotiation skills, the ability to know when to make a stand and when not to,
and the ability to quickly distract.
The later is
surprisingly easy as young kids are astonishingly gullible. Marty can be just
about to go off on one and I’ll suddenly shout “Look! Train!” Instantly the
bawling stops and he’s looking around eagerly for the train Just in case he picks up on the fact that we're 5 miles away from the nearest railway line I quickly follow up with, “Oh Marty, did you miss it?”
“Yes!” He
announces with barely a hint of suspicion.
“Oh, what a shame,
it was a steam train just like Spencer...” And off we go, the argument
forgotten, the amateur dramatics over for another day.
The only down side
to this use of the fictitious train is that we all now shout out “Train!!” the
moment we see one, which wouldn’t be a problem except that it happens to me
when Marty is nowhere in sight, which seems to worry my work colleagues.
Of course all this
negotiation, distraction and deciding when to make an issue of something has to
come from the parents, and most importantly both parents have to approach it in
pretty much an identical fashion if it’s going to work. This was quite easy for
us as Leanne decided what she was going to do and then told me what I was going
to do.
To be honest, she so patently knew what she was talking about that I
didn't have a problem with playing the accompanying fiddle, and it must be said
that it seems to have paid dividends in that Marty has quickly come to
learn that bawling and tantrums get him nowhere and ignoring his parents
counting “One... Two... Three” is never a good idea... although that still
doesn't stop him occasionally giving it another try... just to be sure.
I guess the other
thing to try to remember in all of this is not to take it personally. Marty is
not acting-up because he wants to wind me up, he’s barely capable of even
understanding that concept, he’s doing it to prove or disprove this growing
idea that he might not be everything. Can you imagine how distressing that must
be to a little kid? To have spent all your life so far with the utter
conviction that there is only you in the world and that everything you see,
hear, smell and touch are merely different facets of yourself. Then suddenly you
start to suspect that this might all be wrong and that you might actually just
be a tiny, fragile, powerless being set in a world that is almost totally
outside of your control. No wonder they break down in tears all the time!
That said, I do
still have to remind myself that Marty isn’t an adult , that he isn’t an evil, calculating
mastermind, twisting me about his little finger just for the sheer fun of it
but that he is in fact just being two.
So on the whole we
seem to have managed to avoid most of the tantrums...but if I ever need
reminding that an emotional explosion is just a heartbeat away all I need do is
change his routine, just a little bit. I have learnt the hard way that two year
olds love routine and, far more importantly, will fight tooth and nail if they
even suspect that there’s the merest possibility that it might in any way be
disrupted.
Bedtime is the
most obvious routine and following the now established ‘rules’ of bedtime results in a happy,
relaxed, process that see’s Marty fast asleep within minutes. However, change
one single aspect of that bedtime routine and the house is going to sound like
a cross between an explosion in a fireworks factory and the collapse of the
Hoover Dam – his mother once added an extra verse into ‘Bar-Bar Black Sheep’
and you’d have thought the sky had fallen in.
I guess if you
live a busy and frenetic life delivering this calm routine might be a bit of an
issue, however we are now blissfully dull so it’s rarely a problem... and it
does have its up sides – Marty must be greeted in the morning by his mum, if I
try all hell breaks loose! Sadly, this means I have to have the lie in’s. Isn’t
life terrible!
So that’s why the
two’s are not so terrible, but what has made it so wonderful?
Well the fact that
you can now actually have a conversation with him is a real joy. Ok, the
conversation is a bit limited – mainly to trains, food, dinosaurs and dragons
but that doesn’t limit the joy. It’s the pat little phrases and off the cuff
remarks that really make you smile.
We were in ASDA when he had a ‘moment’.
“Marty! Look at all
the fruit!” I said in a feeble attempt to distract him. With tears running down
his face he looked up at me and said, “I can’t see the fruit! I’m too busy
crying!”
Currently his most popular phrase is “Daddy I need the
toilet! Help please!” Then, if I’m still sat in my seat a tenth of a second
later, he cries “Quick! Quick, daddy! Before the wee comes!”
Many of the conversations are just surreal. We were quietly
eating lunch one day.
“I’m not a chip.” Marty casually announced.
“Are you not?” I replied, wondering if he’d somehow managed
to break into the drinks cabinet.
“Nooo.” He stopped and stared off into the middle distance, obviously giving it some thought....
“I’m a fish-finger!”
I could go on all day about his language skills - and one day I probably will - but the
other activity that really stands out is his love of hiding, or ‘oydin’ as he prefers
to call it.
The moment I walk into the house he stops whatever he's doing, clasps his hands over his
eyes and announces loudly, “Can’t find meeeee!”
Does he truly believes that the simple act of putting his hands
over his eyes renders him invisible? I’ve no idea... but he certainly acts as if
he does.
Since he’s obviously so good at hiding he usually feels the
need to help out a bit. “Daddy! I’m oydin in the tent!... Can’t find meeee!”
Maybe it’s just me but I do find it all a genuine joy to
come home to.
